Before we talk about the Fall semester, we simply must mention what a great APO summer we had in 2001. Summer 2001 featured CPW in scenic Nacogdoches, TX, home of Stephen F. Austin University and not much else. In a sneak preview of Regionals, Steven, Jo Anne, Carrie, and Doug went down to SFA for a weekend of workshops, weird cramped showers, hair scrunchies caught in trees, and Robert Long’s special antics. Later that summer, AEZ did Sonic Carhopping as a fundraiser for the first time in the Colony, raising over $400 for the fall semester and having a fun barbeque at Christina’s house afterward. The rest of the summer was spent in preparation for the Fall, involving a lot of hair pulling and despair that would eventually get sorted out (more later).

Fall 2001 brought us a small but weird pledge class headed up by Lilly Lu. This semester also saw the premiere of the Pledgemaster Assistant (or Assistant Pledgemaster) in the person of Chris Knight. This pledge class took us to Family Gateway for their pledge class service project, and brought us the APOscars as their fellowship. For the uninitiated, the APOscars was a simple idea similar to the infamous APGhetto: have each clan make it’s own original film, then we would all meet and vote on which film was the best. The execution of this idea proved harrowing however, with procrastination and Floridian voting methods rearing their ugly heads. The movies were . . . interesting, but funny, as the Cordaros did their own Behind the Music episode, the Cordaro Story, the Sparks parodied Star Trek in Star Trek π, the Search for Sparks, the Jordans did an interesting and high tech remake of the Wizard of Oz, and the Wongs did a take off of Charlie’s Angels called Wong’s Angels. A good time was had by all, even though no winners were ever declared do to some squirrelly ballots (sorry Milton).

Fall 2001 saw the return of Math and Science Camp, led by Evelyn Walker. MSC had it’s own bit of drama occur when the school tried to cancel the project for insurance reasons. In the end, good triumphed and the project was carried on a month late, with ~70 kids coming to UTD to be wowed by slime, the Physics Circus, Math Puzzles, and much more. Fall 2001 also saw our most successful Trick or Treat for Canned Goods yet, with 14 student organizations combining to raise over 2500 cans in that one night. Special thanks go to Marsha Kitisrivorapan, who headed up the annual project.

This semester’s service calendar featured several new projects, including several 5K runs (for Wipe Out Kids Cancer, AIDS Lifewalk, Breast Cancer, etc.) where we had to get up at around 5:00 in the morning. For us college students, that is quite a challenge. We also did Random Acts of Kindness, where we split up into small teams and within our $10 budget, do something nice for people. One group paid for free parking in the Bookstore lot and another bought juice boxes and cookies to give out around campus. Our chapter also participated in the Sounds of Class carnival, running a bobbing for apples booth for all of the little children.

In October, four intrepid AEZers made the trek down to SFA again for the Region 7 Conference. Grant, Stephen, Evelyn, and Doug joined forces with the TCU contingent of Emily and Jessi for the trip down to Nacogdoches. While we were there, we attended a lot of cool workshops, including a martial arts/self defense demo that taught Doug that his only chance against Steven is to hit him where it hurts and get away. Fun was had and all returned safely.

Fall also saw the return of the AEZ Cup with Omar at the wheel. Points were awarded for hours, newsletter articles, attendance at committee meetings, etc. The Sparks triumphed once again, this time in a landslide over the other three clans.

This semester, Russell began a weekly contest during the chapter meetings called Joke of the Week. The challenge was to tell a clean, funny joke for AEZ Cup points. Thus began Josh Choe’s now near-legendary string of bad jokes. Fortunately, other people besides Josh told jokes, so we had another funny moment during our chapter meetings.

No discussion of the Fall 2001 semester would be complete without mentioning The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien’s masterpiece hit the big screen in December 2001 with The Fellowship of the Ring, and AEZ was there. A rather large group of us went to the midnight showing on opening night, December 19th, to see the movie and the weirdos that it brought out of the woodwork (including Jo Anne and her daughters).

Finally, Fall 2001 saw us say goodbye to Mike Shelby. Mike was an Honorary brother of our chapter for many years, bringing us such phrases as, “Well, back in Zeta Beta …“, “Sweet.” , and “OUT-standing!”. Mike had recently become an advisor for our chapter, and we were all very sorry to see him go. Good luck Mike, we’ll see you around.

President

Grant Smith

VP CoLD

Omar Manlapaz

VP Membership

Russell Fluitt

VP Service

Carrie Eshelbrenner

Secretary

Doug Martin

Treasurer

Jo Anne Wright

Pledgemaster

Lilly Lu

Advisory Chair

Roger Stearns

Outstanding Active

Carrie Eshelbrenner

Outstanding Active Service

Doug Martin

Outstanding Pledge

Jon "Milton" Berry

Outstanding Pledge Service

Patrick Smith

© 2002-2008 Alpha Phi Omega - Alpha Epsilon Zeta Chapter

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